Tele Sales – Core Communication Skills – Tips for Success - Chapter 2

Tele Sales – Core Communication Skills – Tips for Success - Chapter 2
The 2nd Chapter in Tele Sales - Tips for Success – concentrates on the core communication skills you need to develop and continually practice. Demonstrating these skills will provide a solid foundation on which to further develop Telephone sales success.These tips apply to both inbound and outbound Tele Sales:
1. PLAN WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SAYThe greatest myth in selling is that salespeople must have the gift of the gab. But ask yourself the following: Do you recognise glib, slick fast talking sales people? Do you trust them? Do you buy from them? I suspect your answers are: 1.Yes 2. No and 3. No. Additionally there is nothing worse than someone who appears to be reading from a script and cannot divert from a rigid process to respond to the customer’s comments, questions and requests.Accepting that you cannot fully plan or predict what a customer will say or how they will respond to what you say, you can however be tactical in your approach.Develop a plan and a structure of what you need to say to your customers. This can be in the form of bullet points and when dealing with customer enquiries. Tick these points off as you communicate them – you can then see what points you have made. You can also use the tick list to help to not forget important features and assist you to summarise what you’ve said at the close of a call. Pause before responding immediately to a question or customer comment, think what it is you want to say. Most customers will recognise and respond positively to a considered response more than waffling directionless sentences that when listening to the content of what has been said, actually say little at all!
2. BE CONCISE & CLEAR If you have a plan and a general structure of what you need to communicate, deliver this information concisely and clearly. Provide bite size chunks of information that are easy for the customer to listen to and understand.Develop a range of ‘roll off the tongue’ phrases and sentences you can deliver in a natural and friendly manner. You don’t have to sound like you’re a rehearsed public broadcaster. ButBe careful not to sound too well rehearsed!
3. SOUND LIKE YOU ARE CONFIDENT & MEAN WHAT YOU SAYLess than 50% of the words we say and how we say them has a significant impact when communicating face to face. Therefore, when communicating over the telephone we are an immediate disadvantage and we have to ensure we compensate by the loss of the signs we give and get through our non-verbal communication.Be aware of your energy levels. The pace, volume, tone and pitch of your voice when communicating will impact on the impression the customer will have of you.A classic trap for Tele Sales professionals when confronted with a question or comment from a customer, to which they are not sure how to respond, is for the volume of their voice to drop when delivering their response. This can give a non-verbal signal that suggests the person speaking is lacking in confidence in what they are saying. The old saying is that – “It’s not what you say – it’s how you say it!”
4. PERSONALISE THE CALL – USE THEIR NAMEUse the person’s name when you talk to them – not just at the beginning and end of a call – but throughout. If you don’t have their name, give yours and ask for theirs.Knowing and using someone’s name is one way to personalise your call in a way that it makes the individual you are talking to believe that you are talking to them and that the call is not just one of a high volume of calls you are making today. The quicker you can develop an effective rapport with someone the better chance you have of engaging in a meaningful conversation. This will enable you to ask probing questions that will provide you with specific information that you will be able to link features of your products and services to identify individual customer benefits.
5. ACTIVELY LISTENConcentrate on listening. Try to keep focussed on what the customer is saying to identify their needs. Don’t get distracted by things that are happening around you and thinking of what you are going to say next. Take notes when listening. Try to avoid asking customers to repeat things they have already told you (if you have to ask for information they’ve already provided, again, acknowledge the customer has already told you and/or ask them to clarify once more the information they have given you).
6. ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT IS SAID TO YOUAcknowledging what is being said to you requires you to actively listen.As a development exercise - Practice listening – ask a colleague to tell you something about what they have done recently - Identify what you have heard and repeat back with as much detail as possible. Get them to feedback to you what you have heard correctly and the key points of what they were saying to you.Acknowledge verbally that you are listening to a customer – use phrases like – “OK”, “Good”, “I see”, “Thank You”, etc. This provides the customer with confidence you are interested and concentrating on what they are sayingAsk for clarification or ask checking questions to ensure you have effectively understood what they are saying – i.e. “This happened when?” “What time was that?” “When did you discover the fault?” “So if we can provide you with ‘x’ and ‘y’, you would be interested in this product/service?” etc.Again this provides the customer with confidence that you are taking responsibility to ensure their needs are met.
7. GIVE THE CUSTOMER SPACE When listening to telephone communication, it often occurs that both people will at some point be speaking at the same time. When this occurs it is virtually impossible for any accurate listening to take place! Don’t talk over customers (unless in extreme cases where they won’t stop talking and you feel it is appropriate to progress the conversation by interrupting them) Continue to verbally acknowledge them until they pause and then progress with your response.
8. GIVE YOURSELF SPACE & RESPONDThe first two tips in this chapter are to ‘plan what you are going to say’ and ‘be concise and clear’So don’t jump in too quickly and respond without considering what you are going to say. To give yourself space to consider your response, use verbal acknowledgements and give a verbal commentary to the customer to provide yourself with space to plan your response to their comments and/or questions.i.e. Verbal Acknowledgements could be – paraphrasing what they have just said “So what your saying is ……”, “Let me see what I can do for you”, i.e. Verbal commentary – explain to the customer what you need to do or are going to do so you can answer their questions/queries, respond to their comments – examples may sound like this “Before I can answer that ……” “So I can resolve this matter I need to …..” “Let me see what stock we have available before we …..” etc. 9. CONTROL THE CALLWe’ll cover the skills and tricks of the trade to control a conversation in more detail in a future chapter in this series, but key to any success in Tele Sales is being able to assertively take control of the call.Asking questions is a very useful way to control the flow of any conversation. Obviously you have to avoid sounding like you are interrogating a customer.Use questions to identify the information you required to build your sales pitch.Use open questions to encourage the customer to give you more detailed information – What, When, How, Why, Who, etc.Closed questions to provide clarification of information – Do you? Did you? Can you? Is that correct? Etc.
10. SUMMARISE & CLOSE THE CALL Always close a call by summarising either the content of the call or confirming the actions and/or purchase agreed.Don’t forget to thank the customer for their time, purchase, interest, etc.If no action or sale achieved try to confirm an agreed reason for a future call!